Share Your View: Night Photography

Aaaaah, night in Venice. Magical. This was the lone gondolier at midnight, available for a night time gondola ride through the city. I love the quietness this image conveys. No ripples in the water. The line of gondolas parked for the night. The waiting gondolier. So fun to share these little slices of night with you.

And, as promised, it's time to share your view of night! You've had a week since the Exploring with a Camera: Night Photography post to look back at your past night shots and or maybe try a few for the first time. All you need to do is fill out the widget below (you may have to click over to the actual blog, if it's not visible in your reader) with your name and a link to your photos. Please link directly to the blog post or Flickr photo intended, because a general link to a blog or photostream will have content changing all of the time and we might not be able to find the image we were meant to see if we come by later. (Because for some of us, I won't name any specific names, we're always behind on our blog reading and we don't want to miss these.)

I look forward to seeing your little slices of night! Please visit around and share some comments with your fellow photogs as well. A fun way to find new friends.

Surprising Traditions

One of the things that is so wonderful about visiting something famous like Oktoberfest, in person, is that you get to see beyond the cliches to find other surprising details. Like these gingerbread cookies. These were sold everywhere around Oktoberfest. Most of these had little messages and notes of love frosted into them, from "I love you" and "I'm a princess" to "I'm single," and you were them strung on a ribbon like a necklace.

These are part of the festival tradition, a badge of honor that says, "I was at Oktoberfest today." Most kids had them on as they left for home, riding the U-bahn and fidgeting with the cookies. They are clearly also part of the local courtship rituals, with men and women walking hand in hand, in their lederhosen and dirndls, wearing giant cookies (literally, more than a foot across some of these) with messages that proclaim a relationship.

Here is our "little prince" with this cookie, we couldn't miss out on this tradition ourselves. We tried the gingerbread cookie later, and to be honest, it wasn't that great to us. But I bet to those who have grown up with Oktoberfest, it's the taste of a season they relish.

Who knew? And you probably thought Oktoberfest was all about beer. (Don't worry, it still is, those images will come too!)